On a farm, with room to run and play... he's better off there

I went out with friends Friday night to a bar downtown that featured live band karaoke. Let me just say I can't begin to express what an unadulterated mess that is. The only time I'd seen a similar act was in D.C. when a San Francisco band named 'The Amazing Embarasonics' played before an anti-Bush rally at a club near Howard. More on this later.

As I was sitting there watching drunks bull rush the stage for their 3:30 of fame and lifetime of ridicule and embarassment (simply by singing in as low a register as one can does NOT constitute a good Johnny Cash song, merely a bad Johnny Cash impression) I couldn't help but notice the bouncers.

Now, I've worked as a doorman, a bouncer and a bartender in Chicago, but I was always careful to shy away from the 'bar celebrity' status that any of those provides. Just because you can walk behind the bar and grab bottles without someone shoving you out the door doesn't make you any more as a person. It just seems that way to drunks, I guess.

The bar Friday had show quality meatnecks working the door and patrolling the bar for trouble spots. Beefy, underpaid men with tattoos and goofy caps milling around the front door in case they needed to throw a 95-pound 19-year-old and her miniskirt out in the cold should they try to slip by the keen eye of men who have received minutes if not whole quarter-hours of training in spotting fake IDs.

I realized that outside of Roadhouse and Chicago's very own Green Mill, I've enver seen a bouncer over 30 (and I've been to a LOT of bars in a LOT of places). Big cities, small towns, dive bars, ritzy piano bars and old school gin joints and I've never really seen older guys working as doormen.

Where do the meatnecks go? Do they work their way up the food chain to bartender? For men with no other discernable skills than being large and self-important douchebags, what do they do next? When you head out this weekend, pay close attention to the man in the motorcycle/gym/sports jersey who takes your ID. Then, try to imagine him working the counter at Starbuck's or filling out your tax returns.

It's a strange little subculture - much like the music scene - of nocturnal humans who kick around after waking up at 3 p.m., grab a bite to eat and head off to work. Speaking from exerience, night jobs rob you of a lot of motivation and energy, but it's hard to tell where these guys end up. Honestly, it's been bothering me for three days now.